Sic Semper Amicus (Always a Friend)
by Marjorie K. Place
Summary: Pride has misgivings about firing that bullet at LaSalle. Chapter 1 Tag to the season opener 2x1. Chapter 2: LaSalle hits Rock Bottom Pride/LaSalle bonding Father/Son theme
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Y'all know how I like to explore the Father/Son side to Pride and LaSalle's relationship. So, this is a tag to Sic Semper Tyrranis. This takes place immediately following the scene where Pride introduces everyone to the bar.**

Chris LaSalle never thought he'd be slowly drowning in a pool in his blood caused by a bullet fired by his best friend. Oh Pride's actions had come with good intentions when he fired the high powered round into the younger agent's Kevlar to warn them that they were about be ambushed by Zed's servants. But unfortunately the consequences were now proving to be just as life threatening.

Adrenaline and concern for Pride had made LaSalle; stave off the EMS when they had arrived on the scene, unwittingly inviting pulmonary distress brought on by the excess pressure placed on his chest by the bullet. Well it hadn't really been the bullet as much as it had been Chris trying to clear away some rather heavy debris from the back of Pride's new bar, had caused the pressure to increase.

 _Crash!_

"Ya ok, Christopher?"

Chris never quite understood why Pride insisted on calling him by his given name, other than the older man meant it as a term of endearment (sort of like when he called him Son). The only other person in the world that ever called him Christopher was his mother and those times were few and far between.

It was something that had started way back, when Chris was still a detective with NOPD or maybe when he'd moved up to Vice he couldn't recall exactly at the moment. He was too busy trying to breathe.

"I'm good, just a little short of breath of is all." What came out was a sick sounding wheeze. He hunched over, placing his hands on his knees, taking in laboring pain filled breaths.

The senior agent, frowned, wrapping his arm around Chris' bicep, recognizing the warning signs. "C'mon let's get ya to hospital. If we're lucky, we can catch up to Loretta." She would ensure that LaSalle was seen and treated quickly, no stone unturned.

Stubbornly, Chris shook his head. "Nah, King, I tol' ya, I'm good. Besides, I gotta hot date." A banker lady he'd met a few nights ago at one of the classier pubs in town.

"The only hot date you've got is with the emergency room." Pride had to admit, he'd never stopped to think about the consequences when he shot at the younger agent. His only thought had been was to deter Chris and Brody from harm's way. He'd figured a bullet into a Kevlar vest, beat one to the forehead.

"Now, no arguin'."

He always heard how people tended to underestimate the damage that could still done by a bullet deflected by Kevlar, broken ribs, perorated abdomen, any number of things. Pride suspected that Chris had managed to puncture a lung, a delayed reaction somehow. But how? He shuddered to think that it might also be something to do with his heart. Even under Kevlar there could still be damage to the cardiac muscle and surrounding tissue. Any fool who had ever read the manual knew that.

He hadn't been aiming for Chris' heart, in fact he'd hoped the bullet would have hit the agent in lower side of his abdomen. But the movement of the boat and a sense of urgency had caused his exact aim to be off.

"King, this isn't necessary," LaSalle grimaced as he slid into the passenger's seat of Pride's classic baby-blue Cadillac. Why was it suddenly so difficult to breathe when he'd gone all afternoon, willing away the ache and pain of the massive purple and red contusion from where the bullet had struck the Kevlar. One would have thought if he would have punctured a lung or something that he would have noticed it right away, not eight hours later.

Ok, so maybe it was worth having somebody take a real look at it, rather than letting the EMS guy press on it through his t-shirt. He had been pretty reluctant to remove his Kevlar so the paramedic could actually look at it.

The waiting room at University Hospital was packed beyond capacity. A bus, carrying a group of tourist had collided with Semi putting every hospital in the area on alert. From the looks of things they were going to have a long wait.

"Excuse me, my agent over here was shot earlier today and he's having trouble breathin'"

The portly nurse behind the counter looked at Pride like he was idiot, rolling her eyes. Ironically, she strongly resembled the actress, Octavia Spencer, hair pulled severely back, big dark eyes, non-verbal gestures and all.

"Shot? An' yer jus' now bringin' him in?" But then again this was the Big Easy. After twenty years, nothing surprised the woman.

"It's a long story," Pride answered, a sprint of heat running of his neck as he realized at some point, he and Chris would have to explain to the attending how the bullet wound came about.

"Oh, it always is." The woman retorted, snide as can be. "Bring him on back to triage and we'll have someone take a look at him."

Pride stood in the doorway as the triage nurse pressed a stethoscope over the fabric of Chris' black Henley and then took the rest of his vital signs. The R.N. treating Chris was a pretty a little thing sort of reminded him of Laurel, long dark brown hair and chestnut colored eyes.

"I do hear some rattling in there. So we're going to send you on back." She smiled at Chris.

"Top of the line privileges, I like that," he quipped in his natural flirty way that made most women turn into melted butter. "I'll just have to thank ya later." Chris winked and the woman started to blush furiously, causing Pride to roll his eyes.

"His date will thank you too." Pride said, making the nurse scoff with disgust.

Chris cut his eyes sharply at his best friend and mentor after she left to go see about a room. "Now wh'd ya do that for King?"

"We aren't here so you can't pick up women." Lord knows, LaSalle had done plenty of that since Savannah died almost to point where the agent felt he needed to step in and say something to his younger friend. But everyone dealt with grief in their own way so he would remain silent for now.

"You could take a lesson from me, King." Chris teased glancing across the across the hall at late forty something woman dressed in dark blue scrubs. "That lady over there, she looks like she could just be your type."

"And what type would that be Christopher?"

"Lonely"

"I'm not lonely"

"C'mon now, ya miss bein' married don't ya?"

"Christopher-"

"That's why ya bought the bar, so ya don't haf'ta go home at night. It gives ya something to do."

Pride cocked his head reading into Chris' words. It sounded to him as if his young friend were speaking more of himself. Now he wouldn't say that LaSalle was wrong about the fact that he missed being married, that much was true, but the other…

Well, maybe his surrogate son was right about that too.

The older man had not realized until just this minute how similar their situations had become different reasons, but the same outcome. They were both currently grieving, Pride for his broken marriage and Chris for Savannah.

"Ya goin' through a midlife crisis King?"

"You just wait. Yer turn's comin." Pride could only shake his head at LaSalle's infectious grin.

"When I get to that point-" Chris closed his eyes at the crushing pain up that had gathered up in his chest, making it hard to breathe again. He tried as hard as hell to mask his expression of pain but the hinge in his voice gave him away. The pain was coming in short intense burning waves now.

"Chris?" Pride poked his head out from cubical, shouting, "Can we get a doctor in here?"

"King, it's nuthin' probably just indigestion"

Pride tossed his young friend a doubtful look as a man in dark scrubs with greying hair and stethoscope wrapped around his neck breezed past him to get to Chris.

"What's the problem?"

"He has chest pains, can't breathe," Pride answered before Chris had the chance.

"When did this start?"

Chris opened his mouth to speak but it was Pride's voice that came out- "Right after I shot him probably, but he's been too wrapped up with me, to come in until now." It was no secret, that the young agent was more loyal to the man than a well trained bloodhound and would gladly lay his own life down if and when the situation called for it. Pride kicked himself now for not just bumping into the shooter and causing him to misfire, rather than choosing to take a shot at Chris.

The doctor looked over his shoulder cutting his eyes at the older man. Obviously, he preferred that his patient answered the questions.

"But in my defense he was wearing Kevlar," Pride added.

"We're Federal Agents" Chris explained. "He had no choice. You see there was this other guy with a gun an I was in the boat with Brody-"

"Never mind," the doctor droned cutting the agent off as if he'd heard the story a thousand times. He then directed Chris to remove his shirt so that he could examine the angry looking contusion. "I'm going to send you upstairs for an MRI and X-rays, hook you up to a heart monitor. At best you'll be spending the night. Maybe a couple of days depending on what we find."

LaSalle's brow furrowed. A couple of days would give him too much time to dwell upon things that he didn't want to dwell on, haunting images, feelings of guilt, issues he didn't want to address. Staying still was the one thing he couldn't handle right now. Suddenly going idle with nothing to do would kill him.

"I ain't staying that long." He retorted, after the doctor left earning a steeled glance from the man who had put him here.

"You will stay as long as he tells you to. Is that understood?"

"You should listen to your father," A middle aged nurse appeared, with an IV in hand. "He knows what's best."

Father knows best? LaSalle automatically chuckled as Pride's face reddened prompting him to rub the back of neck. This wasn't the first time in their eleven year relationship that someone had mistaken him for Chris' father. In fact, it happened quite often when Pride still had a full head of brown hair.

"Yes, ma'am he usually does." Silence filled the room as Pride watched the woman secure an IV line into the back of Chris' left hand, in preparation for the specially colored dye they would use during the MRI to light up various parts of his heart making it easy to detect any signs of damage.

"This is going to take a while," the nurse smiled at Pride. "Why don't you go downstairs, get a cup of coffee? Try to relax?" Even to a stranger, the apprehension on the older man's face was clear.

The 127 minutes that it took for the technician to perform the MRI (and the x-rays) and then get LaSalle settled into a room, seem to go painstakingly slow, causing Pride to go a bit stir crazy. He was a bit worried that his well-planned bullet might have caused his young friend to have a heart attack, or an internal bleed of some sort. What kind of friend does that? Thinking back, he could have just as easily shot to the side placing the bullet in the side of boat, rather than in his friend's chest.

"Well what did the doctor say, Christopher?" His pale green eyes reflected more concern than his calm, smooth, voice.

LaSalle, tried to sit up a little bit higher in his hospital bed, grimacing as he did." He said you gave me a myocardial contusion, in other words, a bruised heart."

A bruised heart? Now wasn't that ironic? Pride supposed there was more truth in that statement than the physician or even Chris knew.

LaSalle looked at his weary friend. "Listen, King, ya don't hafta, stay, I'm good for the night." Or what was left of it. They were going to let him go home as soon as they were able to gather enough data that his heart was stable and the pain had subsided.

Pride sank down in the chair, "Got nothin' better to do, Son"

Son. The term was common of a good Southern upbringing but somehow it always sounded different when Pride said it and it always made Chris grin.

"You do know, I have a father right?" Chris teased.

"I know ya don't like 'em very much and that he didn't raise ya." Not like he had, anyway. Dwayne Pride had made an investment in the young uptight southern boy with a big grin and it had paid off in a big way. Together they ruled the city, though, LaSalle would deny having any part of that and shook his head whenever Pride mentioned that he would one day become the new King.

Next to his own flesh and blood, Chris LaSalle was the only other person, the senior agent would gladly lay down his life.

"True," Chris grinned through the metaphoric language as Pride kicked his feet onto the bed railing, stretching out his long legs.

"Always here for you, Chris."

"I'm always willin' tuh take a bullet for you, King."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Well here we are back for more with a different ending to the LaSalle storyline that was dropped after I Do. An extension of the consequences of his reckless behavior so to speak told in two parts. Hopefully, it won't get away from me...**

 **Rock Bottom**

Dwayne Pride entered the holding area at NOPD with a sickening twinge in his stomach. The phone call he'd been waiting months for finally came. When a strange voice had said Christopher LaSalle had been taken into custody at 3:30 in the morning, Pride automatically assumed the worst.

A DUI

Between his busy work schedules, nights of endless partying and women, combined with the refusal of a good night's sleep, the young agent had been teetering on the edge of a cliff for quite a while now. Though, Chris had put up an argument, that it wasn't affecting his work, Pride would beg to differ that at some point it would. As much as he wanted to keep ignoring it, all of the warning signs for a big downfall were there.

And now he was right, his best friend had just hit rock bottom and hard.

Not that he wanted to be right.

The senior agent kicked himself mentally. He should have been paying more attention to his grieving agent, rather than putting all of his spare time into the bar and training Percy how to be part of a team. He should have known that Chris needed more than a pat on the back and words of wisdom to pull from him the depths of bad decision making.

Pride should have done more for the younger man. Should have seen this coming, or at least stopped pushing the possibility of it to the back of mind when all of the warning signs were smacking him dead square in the face.

He should have said something when he saw LaSalle glance at the pretty red head crossing the street two days ago. Worse, he should have never let Chris anywhere near the crime scene where a Navy Commander's wife had taken a single bullet to the chest when she accidently walked in on a home invasion. Coincidently, she had been a strawberry blonde with green eyes.

Vacant green eyes by the time Chris saw her.

Yes, sir there was no denying it now. Dwayne Pride had failed his surrogate son, miserably. Sorely, he had been under the impression that his little pat on the back chat, with the suggestion to get a hobby and keep his chin up was enough.

Now standing in the middle of a police station in the wee hours of the morning it seemed like a stupid piece of advice to have given his friend. Chris wasn't a child who just needed fatherly guidance. He was a grown man, suffering from survivor's guilt.

"Christopher LaSalle," Pride flashed his badge at the chunky officer behind the in-take counter.

"Let me page Sergeant Williams for you."

Pride stepped away from the counter, pinching the bridge of his nose, pleading with the Savior not to have them charge Chris with a DUI or some other intoxication related incident. That would be career ender, a real deal breaker that not even the influence of the King of the city could fix.

A uniformed officer in his late forties appeared. Lou Williams was a colleague of nearly 20 years. Maybe just maybe this would work in LaSalle's favor.

"Lou"

"Good to see you, again, Pride. Though, I wish I could say it was under different circumstances," The two men briefly shook hands, before getting down to the topic at hand.

"So about my agent. What kind of trouble is he in?" Pride steeled himself as all sorts of possibilities ran through his mind as Lou took a moment stroking his chin.

"You know if I could help LaSalle out this I would…"

"Christopher will face whatever consequences are due him." Pride countered, speaking in a fatherly tone.

"Easier said, than done," Lou said, with a hint of a grin. "The FBI picked him up for interfering with an investigation."

FBI? That certainly wasn't what Pride had expected to hear. What had Chris gotten himself into? The senior agent was baffled as hell but at the same time he couldn't deny he felt a sense of relief. "Then he wasn't drinkin?"

"Might of have had a few but the Breathalyzer came in well below the legal limit. He did manage to roll his truck his however, but thankfully he and the young lady he was with are both ok. Just banged up a little bit."

Banged up he could deal with. Dead he could not.

Pride nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. A breathalyzer test, a girl and the FBI, this was getting more disconcerting by the second. "So about interfering with an investigation?"

"Yeah… I'm going to let the agent in charge from the FBI explain that to ya. His name's Wentworth. Real nice guy if ya know what I mean." Sergeant Williams quipped sardonically before leading Pride to an interrogation room, where a man in a black suit was leaning over the table attempting to grill his surrogate son.

Judging by the look on LaSalle's face he wasn't having any part of it, whatever had transpired had the agent tight lipped, making Pride wonder if he'd asked for a lawyer or was just being uncooperative. "Did LaSalle ask for counsel?"

"He asked for you," Lou answered with a smirk watching the older man purse his lips before opening the door. Of course, Chris would ask for him that's what they had accustomed each other to do when one of them was in trouble. It was something that neither of them had to think about. A prime example, being last year when Chris had called Pride after Cade had discovered Wendy's dead body in his trunk. Another situation, which Pride now regretted, he'd been hard on Chris, a bit too hard, now that he looked back on it.

At the sound of the door, the man in the black suit stopped in mid-sentence and looked up. "Excuse me, you can't just waltz in here I'm in the middle of an interrogation."

Pride could only smile as he whipped out his badge. Clearly, he saw what Lou had meant about the agent. "Not anymore you're not. Dwayne Pride, NCIS."

The agent in the black suit cut his eyes back at Chris before averting his attention back to the Senior Agent "Philip Wentworth, FBI, which I do believe outranks NCIS."

Pride shoved his badge back into his pocket, "In some circles that might be true, but this is my city and he is my agent. Now, if you need me to I can have my director call yours, or we can extend each other a little professional courtesy."

"What do you want?" the agent replied flatly.

"A moment with Agent LaSalle," for starters then he depending on the circumstances, he might be forced to ask Director Vance to intervene.

"You have five minutes."

Pride waited until the FBI agent was gone and then turned off the listening device in the corner of the room before attempting to talk with his second in command. "Ya okay?" he asked, flicking his gaze to the sizable bloodied gauze bandage above LaSalle's left eye.

"Fine, a few cuts and bruises mainly." Chris shrugged before mounting his best defense, "Listen, King, I don't know what they told you, but I didn't do anything." He hated the way that sounded knowing it made him look just like a guilty suspect, but it was true.

"Didn't do anything." Pride repeated, putting his federal agent, investigator face on as if he were talking to a hardened criminal. "But you rolled the truck and admitted to using enough alcohol to warrant a Breathalyzer test."

"I had one drink tuh-nite, King. One." Chris argued before Pride cut him off with a levelled glare. It was the glare he'd seen his friend on use on perpetrators dozens of times. "As for the truck, the only reason I got into the accident is because that FBI guy, Wentworth, was tailing me."

Pride shook his head. "I'm not buying it Chris. I've seen you lose plenty of tails over the years. You're too good at it for me to believe that you lost control of your vehicle because you were too busy checking out the car behind you."

Chris hung his head. There was some truth to that. Maybe if he hadn't been so busy trying to fend off the advances of the beautiful woman in the passenger's seat; he would have seen the other car beside him swerve into his lane. Dealing with three distractions at once had just been too much forcing him to overcorrect and fishtail across several lanes of traffic before clipping the guard rail and rolling to a stop.

"Who's the girl?" Pride asked gently backpedaling into his fatherly-mentor role.

"I just met her tonight, but according Agent Wentworth, she's the wife of some guy who has connections to the Dixie Mafia outta Biloxi. Evidently, the FBI had an agent all set up as part of an undercover operation."

She was married? Chris LaSalle had just sunk to a new level according to the senior agent's way of thinking. Pushing it from his mind, he decided to give his young friend the benefit of the doubt. It was possible that Chris hadn't known and it made perfect sense that the wife of Dixie Mobster wouldn't go around advertising such a fact.

"Until you inadvertently intervened," Pride finished. There was no need for him to hear the rest. He could guess that the agent's job was to romance the unsuspecting women in the hopes of giving up all of her husband's secrets.

Cliché, and a bit underhanded but effective.

Chris nodded his head. As soon as he identified himself as a federal agent, Wentworth was all over him like a fly on shit accusing him of trying to thwart his investigation. Was it Chris' fault that the lady had chosen to go home with him over their agent? How could he have known she was a person of interest for the FBI?

"Do you know where the woman is now?" Pride assumed that since Chris hadn't mentioned a name that he most likely didn't know it which further supported the senior agent's idea that his friend was seriously out of control.

Chris honestly didn't know. The hospital maybe? They'd put her in an ambulance and he in the back of Wentworth's unmarked car and brought him here, where the FBI agent had started in on the third degree.

The heavy crisscross glass and metal door swung open to Wentworth's grinning like the cat that just swallowed the canary. "She's in the morgue. Dead on arrival at University Hospital, so you know what means don't ya, Agent Pride."

"Enlighten me," Dwayne snarled at the agent. For an agent who had just lost his asset, the man seemed a little too happy for Pride's comfort.

Wentworth made certain he was standing toe-to-toe with the King of the City, gloating like he'd just won some sort of prize, "Your boy here is going away for a long time and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it."

"What?!" She had been fine the last time Chris saw her, a little banged up like himself but otherwise okay. In fact, she'd protested to the EMT's that she didn't want to go. LaSalle bolted out his seat looking desperately at Pride as the senior agent's buddy, Lou William's approached him his head hung low.

"I'm sorry, Dwayne I have no choice. Christopher LaSalle, you're under arrest for vehicular manslaughter while driving under the influence. "

Driving under the influence? But the Breathalyzer had come back within the legal limit. There was no way they could tie the two together, unless-

"The hell you don't. This is entrapment and you know it, Lou," Pride stepped in between the sergeant, ready to defend his surrogate son. Things were escalating too fast. Something else was going on.

"Step out of the way, Agent Pride," Wentworth was no longer grinning but the pillar of calm. "Let the NOPD do their job."

"Don't make me arrest you too, Dwayne, you know I will," The conflict in the eyes of Sergeant Lou Williams was real. He was torn between the loyalty to the man the City affectionately referred to as King and his sworn duty. The evidence and Wentworth had him over a barrel.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Pride was seething mad, right up until the point, he felt Chris' hand on his shoulder.

* * *

"King, it's okay, I ken handle it." There was no sense in watching the man he admired get sucked into the shit storm he had caused any more than he already had. He'd seen Pride get all angry and worked up plenty of times before, but not like this. This was only going to end up with the two of them behind bars, and if that happened, well, he didn't stand a snow balls chance. Not that LaSalle really felt that he deserved a chance.

He really didn't. Savannah had died simply because she'd made the tragic mistake of loving him and now a woman that he couldn't say that he actually knew was somehow dead because she had liked his smile and had wanted him to show her the sights of New Orleans outside of the French Quarter. Coincidence? He thought, not. He'd made the decision to leave the bar with her, after a having a drink (and it was only the one) and then let her to do things to him while he drove, affectionate things, stupid things that further allowed his judgement to become impaired to the point, that he'd lost control of the truck, killing an innocent human being.

Or was the dead woman with no name really all that innocent?

 **A/N: So is LaSalle being set-up or has he gotten himself into a situation that he just can't get out of?**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I've had a hard time trying to decide how to finish this storyline off. It keeps wanting to go epic on me.** **But here we are a little Pride/LaSalle for your reading pleasure.**

"What do you mean he's been moved from selective custody to the Parish lock-up?" Pride slammed down the phone. If one more person told him he needed to speak with the FBI he was going to shoot them, literally.

Wentworth was trying to manipulate him (them). If Pride found out that LaSalle was in the infirmary or hurt in anyway, god help the bastard FBI agent. There would be no place on this Earth he could hide if any type of harm had befallen Chris.

But really it was just a matter of time wasn't it? A federal agent stuck in the county lock-up? The odds weren't good and neither were Chris' chances of beating this. At least that was the way it seemed. Thus far, Loretta hadn't been able to find anything on Grace Devereux's body that would indicate anything except that the woman had been bleeding internally from the result of the seat belt snapping back harshly across her belly.

But she'd bled to death so quickly. It didn't make any sense.

Pride was pretty certain a good lawyer could get the DUI portion of the charges dropped if MADD didn't step in and start a public ruckus over the fact that LaSalle was a Federal Agent but as far as the rest of it he didn't know.

Ironically, a witness in another car showed up claiming that he saw Mrs. Grace Devereux, smooching on the agent as he tried to drive and with a sizable whelp on the side of Christopher's neck, well that only bolstered Wentworth's case.

Back to the problem at hand where exactly was his agent? Pride suspected that Wentworth had thrown Chris into the general population for the purpose of trying to threaten him, but why? What was it that the slimy two-headed snake wanted?

As much as he hated to do it, Dwayne needed to go straight to the source; Wentworth.

Pride tried to keep his cool as he walked beside the cocky agent down the pathways in the Garden District cemetery, both donning sunglasses as if they were there as would be mourners. It was ironic how the cemetery became a meeting place whenever crucial information needed to be exchanged. It didn't matter which agency was involved, what informant or what was happening, they all used it. But to be completely honest, the cemeteries of NOLA weren't the most discreet of places, they were gosh darn tourist attractions!

"How many tourists frequent this beautiful sanctuary each year? Would you say a hundred thousand or more? " Wentworth was on a roll, trying to mix malarkey as he paused to let an Asian family of four with stroller pass by them.

The agent was avoiding Pride's questions and it was getting darn right irritating. They'd been mulling around for almost 10 minutes and not one mention of Chris. The senior NCIS Agent's patients was wearing thing.

"Oh I don't know, I' d say it's probably closer to a million," Grabbing the smug man's shirt front, Pride hurled Wentworth into the cement door of some families sealed mausoleum, pinning him. Leaning in, Pride spoke slowly, punctuating his words. He wanted to make sure that the SOB heard him clearly.

"Where. Is. LaSalle? "

"Tell me now! Otherwise, I am going to find a way to open this vault and seal your ass inside of it. "

"Go for it. It still won't get your boy off the hook." Wentworth looked at the older agent amused. "But since our agencies have agreed to share information, I will tell you that he made a deal early this morning. He now works for me."

What?

Marshaling his bravado, Pride stepped back. He turned away, rubbing his nose. He needed a moment to make sure his emotions were in check.

"As-" he finally prompted.

"Bait, basically." Wentworth said smugly, smoothing out his wrinkled dress shirt. "In exchange, we're agreeing to drop the vehicular manslaughter charge with a good lawyer, he won't do time for the DUI."

Because technically there wasn't ground for a DUI, it was bogus, trumped up.

Pride bit his lip. What Wentworth really wanted was Gracie Devereux's husband, the Dixieland Mobster. "Christopher puts himself out there for killin' the wife. You grab the husband, hopin' tuh pull in a bigger fish." The thought was revolting. Not that they didn't from time to time put themselves in similar situations trying to solve a case. They did (which is what Wentworth was obviously trying to do).

But it was the way it had all come about. Dwayne Pride now firmly believed that his young friend had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, putting himself in a position to be used by the aggressive powers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. One bad apple was all it took, and Wentworth was it.

"Sounds like a fair trade, considering I had plans to make Grace Devereux my star witness until your Southern version of Romeo came along." The FBI agent was all smiles to the look of realization on Pride's face. "Though I must say, I thought it would take a little longer than just a couple of nights playin' with them big boys in prison. Guess, he didn't care for his midnight visitors all that much, if ya know what I mean."

Pride curled his hand into a fist; he really wanted to deck this moron. But the agent had learned a long time ago that into today's world, physical violence wasn't an option. "You set him up and as soon as I can prove it I am takin' you down. Do you understand me?"

"Doesn't really matter what happens to me," Wentworth snorted, "All I want is Devereux and your buddy, Agent LaSalle, is going to help me get him."

"And if LaSalle dies?"

"Now that's not my concern is it?"

* * *

 _I-Phone 6S_

 _One black leather wallet containing $47.00 in assorted bills._

 _One Louisiana driver's license_

 _2 credit cards (Visa, MasterCard)_

 _One set of NCIS credentials_

 _1 prophylactic (Trojan)_

 _1 keyless remote (Ford)_

 _1 set of miscellaneous keys_

 _56 cents in pocket change_

 _And one bronze colored chain with a St. Christopher's metal attached._

"There you go, Mr. LaSalle, sign here and you are free to go" Free? Not really. The ankle monitor made sure of that. He guessed that Agent Wentworth didn't quite know the value of his word.

"It's Agent LaSalle," Chris said, shoving his belongings into his pocket before walking out the door, to meet up with Pride. The senior agent was standing at the edge of the concrete walkway, donning a pair of aviator sunshades, his arms crossed over his chest.

"What happened to your hand?" Pride asked, noting the ace bandage on his friend's left hand.

"Nuthin, cut it trying to shave, is all," A poor excuse but he had been trying to shave when it happened.

Pride pulled down his sunglasses, his eye brows knitted. "Not telling me everything is only going to get you into more trouble. After 11 years you should know that by now."

"All right, someone tried to shank me in the bathroom. I grabbed at the weapon, cut my hand."

"Someone who knew you were a federal agent?" Pride inquired.

Chris kept looking straight forward. "Frank Wheatley we busted him a couple of years back for assault with a deadly weapon." Go figure, the ass wipe was still making the same mistakes. Not that LaSalle hadn't just made one, he'd made a really big one (though not one he was likely to repeat).

"I got a bad feelin' about all of this." Pride let out a sigh as they reached the Expedition. "I wish you would have called me before making a deal with Wentworth." Years of experience and having watched several good law enforcement officers, go down the wrong path told the senior agent that his young friend was about to be used for some ulterior purpose, he just couldn't figure why.

Chris tugged on the door handle. "This ain't got nuth'n tuh do with you, King. This is all on me." If there was some way, he could manage to atone for his sins, by bringing a little more justice into the world he had to try.

Pride pulled himself into the driver's seat and started the vehicle. "It's never all on you, Chris."

Chris gave the older man a half grin. "I appreciate that King, I do. But I can't have you involved in this."

Couldn't have _him_ involved in this? Pride felt one of their father/son type arguments about to come on and killed the engine. "Can't have me? You're up on a murder charge here, Son. Right now, I'm the only one who's standing in your corner."

"I-I-know…" Chris started to stammer. Pride was absolutely right about that. But there was something King didn't understand. He needed to do this on his own, without further risk to anyone else.

"There are smarter ways to go about this, Christopher. You of all people should know that." Pride scolded, still mystified. Chris had 15 years on the job as a Federal Agent and was ex Vice and Homicide to the boot. He should know better than to take a punk ass deal that would only foreseeable land his ass in more hot water, if not get him killed.

Nope, there was something else, going on here. King was sure of it.

"So ya want me tuh just set here and do what exactly?" Chris countered, "King, I killed somebody. That ain't going away by itself. I gotta do somethin' tuh make this right!"

"And you think helpin' Wentworth catch the husband is gonna make it any better? The man is going to want to kill you, son!" Pride loved Chris for his wholesomeness and strong sense of justice, he really did, in fact he applauded him often for it but there were times, that same sense of always needing to do the right thing without thought to consequence, well, sometimes it clouded his judgement.

This was definitely one of those times.

Chris made his fed up face and let out a sigh, "look, if it makes feel any better, I'll be wearing a wire the entire time, plus, I've got this handy-dandy ankle monitor and that ain't comin' off. Wentworth will know where I am the entire time. There ain't no escapin' him and his merry band of FBI agents."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Pride said sardonically, before dropping the third degree. The rest of the ride back to the field office was silent each man attending to his own thoughts until they turned down St. Anne street.

"What's the matter?" Chris asked when he saw his friend's brow furrow.

"The remote to the gate quit workin' again." Meaning, Pride would have to park on the street. Conveniently, there was an open space right across from the main entrance to the office.

LaSalle frowned as he watched Pride attempt to wedge the Explorer into the small space. There was a space but it seemed a little snug for the size of the SUV. "Ya need me tuh help ya parallel park?"

"No, Christopher, I don't." Pride made an angry face right before accidently clipping the car in front of him with the bumper.

Needless to say that didn't go over well. But LaSalle knew to keep his mouth shut. The damage to the other vehicle wasn't bad, a small dent where the bumpers had caught one another. Pride knelt down to inspect the damage while LaSalle panned the mostly empty street.

"The owner could be anywhere around here, King. It's probably best if ya just leave a note."

Neither one of them paid any attention to the classic black GMC van until it was almost on top of them. Before they were able to react the side door opened with two men wielding guns.

Automatic weapons.

Talk about getting caught with your pants down! LaSalle was unarmed and with Pride being crouched down with his back to them, they were in an impossible position to fight back.

"Get in!" One of the men growled, brandishing his weapon. "Or Grandpa, gets one to the back of the head."

Pride put his hands up, glancing at LaSalle. The idiots would be stupid to shoot them in the street in front of the NCIS office. Cameras were everywhere. "Christopher, don't move."

LaSalle watched the non-verbal eye contact between the two men and knew what they were planning to do. The second guy looked like he had an itchy trigger finger. They were in a no win situation.

Briefly, he shifted his gaze to Pride. "You'll find a way to get me back."

"Christopher!" Before Pride could react, the second gunman jumped out the van, ramming the butt plate of the weapon into the back of his skull. The gunman hopped back into the van, closing the door as it sped off, their captive pressed up against the driver's side wall.

"Did ya haf'ta hit him?" LaSalle glared as the first man, started to work the monitor at his right ankle.

"The ol' geezer has a tough skull. I'm sure your precious King as you like to call him will be just fine." The lock popped releasing the tracker, enabling the gunman to hand it to the driver who promptly chucked it out the window into the street.

Chris sank his teeth into his bottom lip, swallowing back his rage. Within minutes, there would be a barrage of squad cars gathering at the field office prompting an all out man hunt. "He'd better be or you can tell your boss, I'm done."

 **A/N: Oh LaSalle! What are you doing? Bonus points for anyone who can tell me who Frank Wheatley is.**


End file.
